Tuesday, September 27, 2011

(Key West, FL)- America's premiere midwinter big-boat regatta, Key West
Race Week sailing January 16-20, 2012, has much to celebrate. It's the
25th anniversary of the event, it has Quantum Sails as a title sponsor,
and J sailors will again help create what has become a "de facto" J/Fest
every winter in January down in the sunny, warm, near tropical
trade-winds that are typical in the lower Keys at this time of year.

The tradition all started with the J/24 Midwinters in 1978, a week of
sailing after the traditional "SORC feeder-race" known as the
Lauderdale-Key West Race. The first year was a resounding success,
attracting most sailing industry luminaries you hear/ read about today
in a 21 boat J/24 fleet- Tom Whidden, Vincent Brun, Dave Ullman, Dave
Hirsch, Mark Ploch, Larry Leonard, Augie Diaz, Gary Weismann, Ed
Reynolds, Jimmy Allsop, Dave Curtiss, Bob Barton, Bill Allen, Gordy
Bowers, John Southam, Jimmy Scott, Scott Allan, John Kolius, Neal
Fowler, Rick Grajirena, Carter Gowrie, Charlie Scott and so forth. In
less than five years, YACHTING magazine's Charlie Barthold was so
inspired by the success of the J/24 Midwinters event in Key West they
created Key West Race Week to incorporate not just one-design classes,
but handicap classes, too. The rest is history. Later, as the baton
was passed onto others, now under the leadership of Peter Craig at
Premiere Racing, the event has continued to both prosper and survive the
"best of times, the worst of times".

This coming year, a new innovation for 2012 will be J/Boats specific
handicap classes. “We are really excited about the prospects of
developing J-specific handicap classes at Key West next January,” said
Jeff Johnstone. “The concept is to group together different J designs of
similar speed to provide both excellent class racing, as well as to
open up the possibility for sub-class one-design racing. An example
would be the J/111s and one or two other models racing together with a
tight rating band. We are already projecting as many as six J/111s next
year.”